Tempe resident Paul Romero places coals on a hookah at King Tut's Hookah Lounge on Apache Boulevard in Tempe.

Tempe City Council approved an ordinance Thursday to restrict such businesses as plasma donation centers and hookah lounges in an effort to protect the community from loitering and heavy traffic.

The restrictions will require certain new businesses, including tobacco shops, auto-title loan stores, rent-to-own operations and various types of employment agencies, to go through a public-hearing process before they can open.

The ordinance will address concerns brought forward by Tempe residents that these businesses can have negative effects on their neighborhoods.

Empty bottles, windblown newspapers and scattered cigarette butts are not only ugly to look at, they may also cost ASU as much as $325,000 a year in extraneous labor costs, said Assistant Director of Facilities Management Ellen Newell.

"I'm horrified by the amount of litter on campus and the amount of time our crew spends picking it up," Newell said.

On an average day, approximately 60 groundskeepers spend about six hours out of their eight-hour workdays just picking up litter, Newell said.

What's the difference between spending a winter night in Phoenix, as opposed to Tempe?

As far as the conditions go, not much. But to the ASU football team, it signifies where it wanted to be when the season started and where it ended up - because the Sun Devils began with visions of the Fiesta Bowl, yet will finish the year at Chase Field against Rutgers in the Insight Bowl instead.

A 15-page term paper looms over her head and a blank computer screen stares her in the face. After a week of this scenario, sociology senior Christine* decides to try a new approach to studying, something she's never done before: take a prescription pill to focus her concentration.

Her pill of choice is Adderall, a prescription central nervous system stimulant used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder and hyperactivity, disorders she does not have. In other words, Christine took an amphetamine to get her paper done. Christine swallows 5 mg of the drug -- half a pill -- around 5 p.m. on a Thursday evening at her parent's house. She says as she drives home a few hours later, the pill starts to kick in.

Perry Allen is like a lot of high school seniors in the Valley. He goes to school, he hangs out with his friends and he has a part-time job at a pancake joint. Allen has also released two of his own albums, played on stages all over the Phoenix area and has now won SPM's first Scene Points contest.